CARLSBAD – Two years to the day after a radiation leak occurred at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, forcing the facility to shut down operations, officials say the recovery process is finally approaching the finish line.

“When I walk around the site people always ask when they get to start again,” said Todd Shrader, manager of the Carlsbad Field Office, on Friday.

On Feb. 14, 2014, a continuous air monitor alarm went off during the night shift indicating that a radiation leak had occurred.

It was just nine days after Feb. 5, 2014, when a salt haul truck unexpectedly caught on fire.

Since the two incidents, WIPP has not been receiving nuclear waste for storage and has been in recovery mode.

Every step taken during the facility’s recovery has been meant to facilitate the reopening of the facility and to do it safely and right.

Shrader said that safety in the workplace is the focus for everything done at WIPP, from recovery activities to new procedures.

“The biggest challenge we faced early on is operating,” Shrader said. “For 15 years we operated a certain way and then overnight it was changed.”

He said WIPP’s workforce had to learn new jobs or learn how to do certain things a completely different way.

“People have really stepped up in that sense,” Shrader said.

WIPP is expected to open sometime this year, with officials indicating that it will most likely be closer to the end of the year.

Phil Breidenbach, Nuclear Waste Partnership president and project manager, said on Thursday at a Carlsbad Department of Development meeting that the goal is to get WIPP fully operational by the end of 2016.

“Hopefully we can execute what we need to get done and surprise some people,” Breidenbach said, indicating that the staff and administration is moving to get WIPP reopened before December 2016.

Shrader said that the most-recent milestone WIPP has made is to down-grade certain areas of the underground that were once labeled radiological areas.

He said that for the majority of the last two years, workers had to wear respiratory and radiation protection gear in those areas.

“We went from a clean facility to a potentially radioactive facility,” Shrader said.

He said that because of decontamination efforts, in the areas down-posted, workers can now work without all of the protective gear on, which makes the clean-up tasks easier in general.

“Working in a radioactive environment in head-to-toe protective equipment is a difficult way to do work,” Shrader said.

Now looking ahead, Shrader said that keeping the workforce focused is the current challenge.

“Keeping everyone driven and motivated as we move ahead is what we need to focus on now,” Shrader said.

He said that keeping everyone motivated is key as they move into readiness activities.

According to a news release from the U.S. Department of Energy on Friday readiness activities will ensure all equipment, people and procedures have been thoroughly tested before plant operations resume.

“In general, the very nature of how the two events took place, it took us time to understand what happened,” Shrader said, adding that everything done in recovery has been done to ensure that the facility will be protected from repeat events.

He said that across the board there has been improvements.

“We had 15 years of great work before those events took place. What we are doing now is positioning ourselves for 15 more years of great work,” Shrader said.